Hillarysworld

Haiti aid flow grows

Published: Sunday, January 17, 2010
By Alfred de Montesquiou and Mike Melia, Associated Press Writers

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Hungry, haggard survivors clamored, and sometimes fought, for food and water Saturday as donors squabbled over how to get aid into Haiti and rescuers waged an increasingly improbable battle to free the dying before they become the dead.

Haiti's government alone has already recovered 20,000 bodies — not counting those recovered by independent agencies or relatives themselves, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told The Associated Press. He said a final toll of 100,000 dead would "seem to be the minimum."

There were growing signs that foreign aid and rescue workers were getting to the people most in need — even those buried deep beneath collapsed buildings — while others struggled to cope with the countless bodies still left on the streets.

Crowds of Haitians thronged around foreign workers shoveling through piles of wreckage at shattered buildings throughout the city, using sniffer dogs, shovels and in some cases heavy earth-moving equipment.

Searchers poked a camera on a wire thorough a hole at the collapsed Hotel Montana and spotted three people who were still alive, and they heard the voice of a woman speaking French, said Ecuadorean Red Cross worker David Betancourt.

The urgency was growing, however: On a back street in Port-au-Prince, about a half dozen young men ripped water pipes off walls to suck out the small amount of water trapped inside.

"This is very, very bad, but I am too thirsty," said Pierre Louis Delmar.

In Washington, President Barack Obama joined with his predecessors George W. Bush and Bill Clinton to appeal for donations to help Haiti and he sent Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the Caribbean nation.

"We stand united with the people of Haiti, who have shown such incredible resilience, and we will help them to recover and to rebuild," Obama vowed.

Bellerive said an estimated 300,000 people are living on the streets in Port-au-Prince and "Getting them water, and food, and a shelter is our top priority."

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That was one of the most moving pictures I saw.